"As soon as Christ's kingdom comes to terms with the world, Christianity is abolished."

- Soren Kierkegaard

It's safe to say that mostly everyone is up in arms about everything today. In most cases, it's for good reasons. I only have to mention single words and you'll know what I'm getting at. Trump, for example. What about racism? ban? or refugee? My goodness, even the word wall evokes emotions of anger and kicks off vitriolic arguments for this or againstthat. Honestly, I've felt sick as I've seen all the bad news and terrible arguments. I'm sure you have too.

For quite some time I have felt the need to write something that responds to all the anger and disagreement flying around lately, but to date I have failed to materialize anything substantial. Every time I start something I can't finish. I want to say something meaningful, something that matters, but the second I start writing I am so overcome with despair and anger that it all becomes nonsense. So, I stop writing and go back to reading my books telling myself that the research I'm doing is more worth my time and effort. Today, however, my thoughts and feelings have fermented enough to help me arrive at a point in which I have a moderate grasp of what I want to write. And rather than directing it at the world in general, it is directed towards people who refer to themselves as Christian, because that's who I feel called to address at this point.

As someone who identifies as Christian, I would like to extend an invitation to other Christians: stop expecting politics and the state to solve whatever problem it is that you think needs to be solved. You might think and believe that identifying with and arguing vehemently for the left or the right is the best way to establish God's Kingdom on earth, but the last time I read the gospels, it seemed clear to me that Jesus said: "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). Or, "'The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you," (Luke 17:20-21). Or, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God [...]? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade," (Mark 40:30-32).

Yes, I am aware that you have extracted principles from the Bible and would like to see them applied decisively in our society by whichever state happens to be in power, but you are not alone in that desire. In fact, it's precisely why the other Christian you're arguing with and judging is arguing with and judging you. All of us, myself included, have ideas about how what we encounter in the Bible ought to be applied in the world. But then, Jesus appears and tell us: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you," (John 15:18-20).

Ah, you say, but people do hate me because I'm a conservative in the name of Jesus!Ah, you protest, don't you understand!? Isn't it clear that Jesus was a revolutionary liberal and I'm only pointing that out to the others who hate that truth? To both protests I would answer, here's a radical idea put forth in scripture: if Jesus thought leaning right or left—i.e. being political in the way that it is conceived of today—was going to solve any of the problems he came to solve, then my guess is that he would've started building a political empire on earth by force, and in the process, given in to the last temptation presented to him in John 6:15. But he didn't. Instead, Jesus operated outside the political system of his time and resisted its moralities and goals in both word and action; asked only twelve people to follow him and do the work that needed to be done (one of whom betrayed him to the political authorities); and, he ended up being crucified outside a city, with all its political parties and structures, that rejectedhis message and mission.

Wait a second. Does this mean you're saying Jesus wasn't revolutionary? That's exactly what I'm saying if beingrevolutionary means what it means today according the words and actions of many Christians (i.e. status posting alt-right garbage or re-tweeting your support for this or that liberal initiative because you think the church needs to follow rather than resist the current of history). But if being revolutionary means preaching and living the sermon on the mount to the point of being nailed on a cross as an enemy of the state and the church, then yes, I am saying Jesus was and is revolutionary. But only that kind of revolutionary.

Does this mean that we do nothing as we watch everything people take for granted—democracy, truth, justice, equality, freedom, and all the other socio-political ideals we are coming to see are emptier than we thought they are—be shaken at its foundations ? No. Actually, it means we do something, but do it in the name of Jesus. Not in the name of a political party. Because, that Christendom revolution you're hoping for? If achieved, it might actually signal the death blow to rather than the flourishing of the faith that you claim to so proudly and profoundly represent here and now. For, as Soren Kierkegaard points out in Practices in Christianity: "As soon as Christ's kingdom comes to terms with the world, Christianity is abolished."

I just finished reading a book today, and I'll end by quoting a passage from it that I think communicates the other-worldly, Kingdom-oriented-ethic, I'm putting forth here. It's from Jacques Ellul's A Critique of the New Commonplaces, and my guess is that it'll challenge you like it challenges me:

"There is no violence that liberates: all violence enslaves. The growth of the state does not result in freedom, but in greater dictatorship. Any method today that destroys a single [person] in [their] body or in [their] soul, though it liberates a million others, will never do anything but reinforce the slavery of the million [people] you are trying to help."

What if we stopped waging constant war against others we think have it wrong, and instead, viewed them as people who are just as existentially afraid as we are (Matthew 9:36)? What if we stopped thinking and acting as if violence and anger is redemptive (Matthew 5:21-23)? What if we recalled that it gains us nothing to gain everything and lose who we are in the process—adopted children of God who have no other justification than the One who justifies us (Mark 8:36)? What if we remembered that the way in which we judge others determines how we will be judged (Luke 6:38)? What if we reflected on the mandate that the principle fight of the disciple of Jesus is not firstly one that is physical and against material things, but firstly one of prayer against destructive powers (Ephesians 6:12)? What if we constantly repeated the beatitudes to ourselves and asked God to give us the strength to live them out today (Matthew 5:11-17)?

Then, only after we genuinely contemplate and struggle to live out each of these truths as individual and gathered Christians, we might be able to construct practical solutions to the problems we're encountering today. But then, once that happens, my suspicion is that Christians will recall who they really are, and in the process, they'll stop looking to the state, politics, and violence in any form as solutions to such problems.

It's that time of year again. Carols are played in malls. Stores are decorated with tinsel and lights. Coffee cups and soda cans change colour. Yuletide themed clothing is worn at parties. Eggnog becomes available in stores. Keep Christ in Christmas campaigns materialise. All of these and many other cultural signifiers are deployed by various organisations, groups, and individuals to alert us to the fact that Advent season is here, Christmas is coming, and that all of us have to prepare accordingly and do something.

Along with everyone else, I have a certain understanding regarding how to prepare for Advent and what that requires my family and I to do, but that is not what I'll be writing about primarily here. Instead, I want to point out something that I think is important for those who claim to be Christian to acknowledge and reflect upon at this time of year: Jesus and his parents were refugees. If this statement offends you or you're not convinced of its validity, then let's take a look at an element of the story of Jesus as it is recorded in the Bible. Matthew 2:13-15:

Now when [Jesus, Mary, and Joseph] had departed [Bethlehem], behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son."

After that, Jesus and his family return home as refugees who were in exile because they were fleeing persecution and the threat of physical harm. Moreover, this general disposition of wandering and transience doesn't end with Jesus' childhood. Actually, it carries through into Jesus' adult years. Luke 9:57-58:

As [Jesus and his disciples] were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

The point in sharing these verses is not to sermonize—even if it probably comes off that way. Rather, it is to point out the simple yet profound fact that as 65 million people are displaced from their homes and 21.3 million of those people are forced to flee to foreign places in fear of their lives, the people who follow Jesus ought to extend empathy, grace, and practical help to those people precisely because Christians, if they are being consistent with an understanding of who it is that they worship, worship someone who is, alongside being described in the Bible as the Son of God, is someone who is also clearly described as a refugee and a transient.

Why is it that so many Western Christians ignore or are unaware of this detail in the Bible? There are a variety of reasons, I am sure. But I think one reason stands out among the rest. It's easier to ignore the texts that call us to responsibility to our neighbour; not just our neighbour who is our family member or friend, not just the neighbour who lives next door to us and we probably should say hello to when we leave the house in the morning and come home at night, but also the foreign neighbour; the neighbour who we may not know or understand completely, but should take the time to welcome into our home and try to understand who they are regardless of what the rest of the world says on the subject.

In the second passage I quoted Jesus says that he doesn't have a place to lay his head on earth and then goes on to say that it is because he home true is in heaven and not on earth. For those who follow Jesus, this implies that we are likewise called to the same perspective and disposition. By acknowledging that where we are now is not our true home, we are implored to relinquish our need to grasp selfishly on to and viciously protect the temporary homes that we have been given on earth. Only then, with such a willingness to surrender our supposed properties and what they represent, can we see that we are called to welcome the outcast and the refugee into our temporary and eternal homes—even when the rest of the world may oppose such a posture or simply ignore those in need because they're too busy drinking eggnog lattes and buying things.

In that respect, I'll end with the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:36:

I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

How can we respond to this reality this Christmas and in the days that follow it? Because that's the strange, beautiful, and often troubling thing about what the Bible tells us about God: God takes the attitudes and behaviours of this world and turns them upside down through God's Son Jesus. It causes us to look at the world different and act accordingly.

I you are like me you are surprised (frightened) by the recent US presidential results. As it happens, I was asked to write an article on the subject for a blog that my friend manages. So, if you want to have a look at my pre- and post-election musings, you can head over here to do so.

My love for roleplaying fantasy games (RPGs) began in my early childhood with the legendary computer game King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown. At the time, RPGs like King's Quest were incredibly novel and imaginative fare for a generation of kids like myself who were encountering computers and virtual gaming for this first time. It was sort of like my generation's version of Pong or Asteroids, except this version of Pong and Asteroids had actual characters with interesting stories; challenging tasks and puzzles one encountered within the context of mythical universes that led to epic battles between good and evil. To me, it was like Narnia and Lord of The Rings come to life in virtual reality.

I've watched RPGs develop significantly since those days. Now, the characters, stories, worlds, and challenges have become increasingly complex and immersive to the point that we often hear horror stories about how some person spent days on end in their mom's basement playing games like World of Warcraft without forming connections with and participating in the actual world. Of course, my RPG time has dwindled to zero for a number of reasons, some of which include: my wife and I don't have the funds for a new television let alone the latest game system and games, and even if we did, it probably wouldn't be a good thing if I allowed the latest RPG to chew up the time and energy I could otherwise be spending with my wife and forthcoming child, and, of course, the time I could be spending researching and writing.

Regardless, I was thinking today about something in respect to my experiences with and love for RPGs. Namely, how when RPGs became sophisticated enough to allow game players to choose from an array of character types (i.e. classes in gamerspeak) which typically includes the categories of warriors, rangers, wizards, priests, and thieves with some variations and subclasses, almost nobody, including myself, would choose the priest class. Now, before I get to my explanation of why that is so, I have to take a nerdy offramp here for those who aren't familiar with RPGs in order to make what I'm going say here make more sense.

So let's make this as quick as possible. Character class is not to be confused with character race. Classes pertain to certain skill sets and abilities while races pertain to a character's racial makeup which often lends itself to certain classes. For instance, the dwarven race tends to lend itself to being an excellent warrior class that is, though typically crummy at magic, also curiously resistant to magic; the human race tends to lend itself to being all around solid but not particularly incredible at classes like warriors, wizards, priests, rangers and thieves; the elvish race tends be best in the class of ranger; and so on. This isn't to say that these rules are hard and fast. Some elves—usually "high" elves—can make great wizards while some dwarves—usually crafty and dextrous ones—can make great thieves. But you get the basic point here.

"THIS IS BECAUSE I REALIZED THAT THE ANSWER TO THESE TWO EMINENTLY NERDY QUESTIONS PRODUCE AN ILLUMINATING INSIGHT INTO STATUS OF THE CHURCH AND INDIVIDUAL CHRISTIAN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF WESTERN SOCIETY."

Now, let's get back to the primary point. What I want to focus on is why I never once have chosen the priest character class in my extensive history of RPG-ing and why it is that the priest class is typically unpopular in comparison to a formidable and sagelike human wizard, nimble wood elf ranger, or battle hardened warrior dwarf. This because I realized that the answer to these two eminently nerdy questions produce an illuminating insight into status of the church and individual Christian within the context of Western society. Here's what I mean when I present this lofty sounding thesis.

You would think that I of all people—someone who has worked in church ministry as a pastor in and is currently studying theology in an academic context—would chose the priest class when playing such games, but I never have. When given the option I always choose the woodelf ranger type class because I always have liked to think that this type of character is the most constitutive of my personality and abilities if I ever find myself in these RPG worlds (one can dream, right?). But also, the reason why I, and pretty much nobody else, chooses the priest class is because it is always—at the very least typically—placed in a role of passivity in relationship to the other, more active, classes, to the extent that, we could call what I'm looking at a a form of genre classism.

Which is to say, ask anyone who's been a regular RPG-er. The priest tends to be the last pick of any player because the priest's primary function is to sit back, pray for, bless, and heal all the other classes as they are engaged in all the fun questing. In one sense, the other classes do rely on the priest for support during battle, but even then, a battle or questing party can still function without the priest class because the healing potions, magical weapons and armour, and basic character upgrades which are staples in any RPG actually fulfill the priest's functions. Moreover, in most cases, such items and upgrades are preferable because you get all the benefits of a priest without the obligatory piety and moralism. To my knowledge, the only time a priest really shines is a quest is when you find yourself fighting the undead in some sort of crypt or a catacomb, because apparently holiness means a mummy or a vampire melts like wax in the presence of heavenly piety. But such contexts and quests are only passing moments in the larger narrative and goal of the game.

Now, some games compensate for this genre classism by creating priest subclasses like warrior druids, holy paladins, and the ever unimaginative battle priest, but these subclasses are only add-ons to or hybrids of other, more formidable, classes like the warrior or ranger. That is, a warrior druid is just a ranger who has better influence over animals and can make trees and plants attack people; a paladin is just a warrior with a cross on his armour and who can invoke the Lord to kick wholesale ass in the name of God; a battle priest is a priest who doesn't wear armour, hits enemies with his shepherd's staff, and uses a sling. The salient point is that the priest class in and of itself tends to take a back seat to all the other classes. Even the thief class, the scoundrel and outcast of society, tends to be more active and relied upon in that they are relied upon to steal valuable items, gather information, and outwit people in key questing moments!

"Ask anyone who's been a regular RPG-er. The priest tends to be the last pick of any player because the priest's primary function is to sit back, pray for, bless, and heal all the other classes as they are engaged in all the fun questing."

So, what does this say about the status of "the priest class" both in and outside the context of RPG universes? To me, this suggests that, much like the priest class in the RPG world, the priest class along with the church in the real world tends to be viewed as the passive characters within the broader socio-political realm. What one hears today is this constant refrain from the social and political sphere: don't worry little priest, don't fret little church, let us do all questing—the social change and the heavy lifting—and we'll call on you when we need a bit of blessing, healing, conscience, and moral support. And then? The priest class and the church accepts the role it has been given. The most they can do is baptize a political movement with phoney prayer and endorsements (cf. the RNC rally of this year).

This isn't to suggest that there needs to be some drastic paradigm shift in which our society need more games in which priests or biblical figures are the main characters who get all the questing responsibilities—although I do remember one NES game that did make such a valiant and entertaining attempt—but, this is to suggest that even within the realm of imaginative, virtual, gaming, Western society tends to force the priest and the church class into roles of passivity that exist only to enable or legitimize the work of other, more active classes, and that we, the priests and the churches tend to accept that without any question on concern.

This also isn't to suggest that priests and the church ought to fight like everyone else, because I believe that the church, of all social bodies, ought to show the world a way different than violence. But just because the church, its priests, and its members ought not to be violent does not mean that it can't get out of the back seat, use its imagination, and activate proactive change in the world.

I'm nearing the end of a fantastic book called The New Demons by Jacques Ellul, and I thought I'd share a passage from it that, to my mind, hits exactly on a phenomenon of our time. Ellul writes:

The religious legacy of Christianity is taken over by the great political currents and by politics. We actually encounter this, not only as expressed at different levels, from the most obvious to the most subtle, in the form of hidden religious tendencies, of a fixation of the religious on objects not intended for that, of unexpected religious burgeoning, all unintentional and unconscious, but also in the form of organized religions, clearly instituted as religion, with dogma, myth, rites, and churchlike establishments, communal gatherings and sacraments, complete irrationality, the dialectic of anguish and consolation, mystical expression and prayer, a global interpretation of man, of the world and of history, and the singling out of heretics. It is a question of political religions.

This is a pretty dense passage so I'll break down what Ellul is getting at here. Basically, many people, especially Christians, say that the West is now religionless because it is no longer Christian. But in New Demons Ellul proves this idea (belief?) false with a compelling socio-historical analysis that tells us just because society isn't Christian anymore doesn't mean it isn't religious. Ellul points out that, in fact, it is historically and sociologically verifiable that religions and religious practices never fizzle out completely in societies. Instead, when one predominant religion loses power in a society, another one, or ones, will take its place. In the case of the West, it is arguable that politics has taken over—to the extent of becoming a religion, with all its dogmas, sacraments, prayers, mystical expressions, interpretations of humanity, the world and history, declared heretics and so forth.

So let's keep this in mind: the next time we encounter a political rally is what we see a rally or is it something more—a religious gathering? Perhaps it is a liturgy rife with prayers, faithful fervour, and mystical experience. For, just because the West isn't inherently Christian anymore does not mean that it is not religious. All you have to do is look closely enough. And while we're at it, maybe we can see about spotting other unlikely religions present in our society.